![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Friday , December 19, 2008
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Corsair TX850W Power Supply
Corsair reaches out to grab the part of the power supply market that could easily be thought of as the enthusiast "sweet spot." 600 watts too little...1000 watts too much....ah, 850 watts, just right. Can Goldilocks stand up to [H] PSU testing?
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the Corsair TX850W is its packaging, accessories, and documentation. While normally none of these items is a make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help in many situations. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing and use more efficient.
The packaging of the Corsair TX850W fits in with the trend of all of the other Corsair units to date, however it recycles the accent color yellow used on the HX520W, I was hoping for Salmon this time. As usual the packaging has a fair amount of information about the unit enclosed including the connector count, power label (which will be broken down below), fan noise level graph, and an efficiency graph. The efficiency graph and text indicates the unit peaks at below 85% efficiency yet still seems to be above 80% at 20% to 100% load. The box has an 80Plus logo, but the 80Plus website does not yet list the TX850W as being certified for any level of Climate Savers and this is very likely due to the unit being so new to the market. Moving on we notice that the unit’s packaging is at times almost a word for word rendition of the TX750W as it also indicates the inclusion of “High-quality Japanese capacitors” like previous Corsair offerings and “powerful +5vsb with 3A rating” along with APFC coupled with the various typical safety features. Also included on the box is a listing of all the connectors that the unit has complete with pictures. Like the last Corsair unit we saw the box proudly promotes the fact that the unit has a full 5 year warranty which is much better than the 3 year warranty trend we were seeing for a while. Hooray! The warranty information for this unit can be found on the Corsair website and in the manual (both included and online) and is reprinted below.
The Product is guaranteed for sixty (60) months from the date of delivery to the end-user against defects in materials or workmanship. During this period, the Product will be repaired or have parts replaced, at our discretion, provided that: (I) the Product is returned to the agent from whom it was purchased with shipping prepaid; (II) the Product has been purchased by the end-user and not used for hire purposes; (III) the Product has not been misused, handled carelessly, or other than in accordance with any instructions provided with respect to its use; (IV) the Product has not been damaged due to acts of nature, such as lighting, fire, flood, or earthquake; (V) the warranty stickers have not been removed or tampered with. Corsair Memory’s warranty on the Product is to the first end user or consumer only, in accordance with the Corsair Memory’s Limited Warranty.
Also like the TX750W power supply, the TX850W is billed as being multi-GPU capable but at the time of writing the unit does not appear on either the SLIZone or ATI CrossFire website, again likely due to how new the PSU is. From the specifications below the unit seems capable of powering most dual graphics card solutions in most users’ systems easily.
The Corsair TX850W is a single 12v rail power supply from CWT and it shares this 12v arrangement with all of Corsair’s previous power supplies that we have reviewed (except for the HX1000W). That single 12v rail is rated at 70A which makes it good for a possible ~99% of the unit’s total DC output capacity. To go with this impressive 12v capacity the unit has been paired with four modified 8-pin PCI-Express connectors just like the TX750W. Also like the TX750W the TX850W has eight Molex connectors for peripherals and eight SATA connectors good for powering your RAID array. Overall this flexible, well appointed setup should make this unit a natural fit almost any high end PC but does not offer any more connector options than the TX750W even though the unit is 100w greater in capacity.
Once we open the packaging we see the usual assortment of items including the power supply in a pouch, cables, mounting screws, user manual, zip ties, and a case badge. The user manual is the same one we had with the TX750W now comes in eight languages spanning about five pages per language and now covers the TX850W, TX750W, and the TX650W. The manual includes the power table, installation instructions, cable lengths, and warranty information. This is some of the desirable information in a manual, especially the warranty information, but it really isn't as complete as some other manuals we have seen that include all the electrical specifications and the pinouts. This is certainly an area that Corsair is starting to lag behind certain of their competition on.